The Penguin Complete Novels of Nancy Mitford

the dark green leaves of the adjacent woodlands were flecked with yellow and the old fruit trees covered with apples and pears and peaches. Impossible to imagine that one was only ten minutes away from Paris. The flowers that were visible all grew in tubs and stone vases, while those for cutting were planted in regular rows, like vegetables, behind a hornbeam hedge. ‘Charles-Edouard hates to see flowers growing in the earth,’ Grace explained. ‘Look how the hot summer has brought out the orange blossom and even ripened a few oranges; very rare, in this climate.’ Wearing a dark grey linen dress with broderie anglaise collar and cuffs she looked exactly right there, as she always did whatever the circumstances. She gave me a pair of secateurs with which to cut the old-fashioned roses, lilies, hollyhocks, tuberoses, carnations, fuchsias and geraniums. ‘We’ll make a lovely mixture,’ she said. ‘Don’t they smell better than those you buy in shops?’

‘And no nursing-home flowers,’ I said. ‘That’s rare at this time of year.’

‘Those horrible gladioli, we don’t dream of allowing them. Aren’t English autumn flowers too loathsome!’

‘Nursing homes here have them too.’

‘Not quite such brutes. The English are forever building themselves up as being so good at growing flowers, best gardeners in the world and all that, and what does it boil down to en fin de compte? Michaelmas daisies and chrysanths, sentant le cimetière.’ Grace was off on her hobby-horse now. ‘Have you ever noticed it’s just those very things the English pride themselves on most which are better here? Trains: more punctual; tweeds: more pretty; football: the French always win. Doctors: can’t be compared, nobody ever dies here until they are a hundred. Horses, we’ve got M. Boussac. The post, the roads, the police – France is far better administered –’

I felt quite furious. ‘Well, come on, Fanny,’ she said, ‘I’m waiting for the answer – you’re the Ambassadress, you’re meant to know it –’

‘It isn’t fair. You’ve got these things all ready to trot out, and I suppose facts and figures to bolster them up if I begin to query them. Before I see you next I shall do a bit of prep, but for the moment my mind is a blank. Oh! I know – justice. Better and much quicker at home – admit?’

‘We hurry people to the gallows all right. Fluster them up in the witness box and then swing them. Give me a dear old juge d’instruction, plodding away, when I’m in trouble –’

‘No, Grace, we don’t hang them any more.’

‘Not even murderers?’

‘Specially not them.’

‘What are you telling me? I don’t care for this news at all! Do you mean people can murder one as much as they like and nothing happen to them?’

‘Yes. Unless you’re a policewoman. I’m not sure they are meant to poison one either or perhaps it’s shooting that’s not allowed. I can never remember. But don’t worry. If they know nothing will happen they don’t murder so much.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes, it was all in the papers. I say – I’ve thought of something else – the papers are better at home –’

‘Are they? I can’t say I ever see them except when Mockbar has a go at us, then some kind friend cuts it out and sends it. He’s a delightful writer, such polish, such accuracy!’

‘You take in The Times,’ I said. ‘I know you do. Try and be more truthful, Grace –’

‘My father sends it, but we hardly ever open it. I keep it for covering the furniture in the summer.’

‘I’ve thought of something else – digestives.’

‘All right, I’ll give you digestives and I’ll give you Cooper’s Oxford and if you’re very good potted shrimps as well. Now that’s rather typical. The only subject we agree on is food, which is not supposed to be an English talent at all. It’s the things they pretend to be good at which are such flops.’

‘It’s THEY now, is it!’ I said.

‘Don’t be angry, Fanny. After all, Charles-Edouard and the children are French –’

‘That’s no reason for downing the English.’

‘I don’t down them – not really, but they annoy me with their pretended superiority. And oh, how they chill me! Not only the climate –’

‘Same as here.’

‘Nonsense, darling, there’s no comparison – but also the hearts. I was noticing that yesterday. I had to go to a wedding at the Consulate – cold as charity it was. Gabble gabble gabble – gabble gabble gabble – may I give you my best wishes? Over. Think of the difference between that and a wedding in a mairie! When the bride and bridegroom come in, M. le Maire, in his sash of office, throws up his arms like General de Gaulle: “Mes enfants! Voici la plus belle journée de votre vie –”’

‘Yes, Grace. I dare say, but people must be themselves you know. Can you imagine poor Mr Stock throwing up his arms like General de Gaulle and saying “My children, this is the most beautiful day of your lives”? It would be simply ridiculous if he did.’

‘Ridiculous, because he hasn’t got a heart. That’s what I complain of.’

‘Anyhow it wouldn’t have sounded very convincing at yesterday’s wedding when you think that the Chaddesley-Corbetts are both nearly seventy and have been divorced I don’t know how many times.’

We snipped away in silence. Presently Grace asked how the Minquiers were getting on.

‘Nothing new, I think. Mr Gravely comes here next week to see M. Bouche-Bontemps. Partly about the Eels, I suppose.’

‘Oh, does he? Bringing Angela?’

‘No. Wives mustn’t come too often because of foreign currency. It seems she was here in the summer.’

‘So she was. Isn’t it mad of the Treasury the way they drive these important politicians to the brothels just for the sake of the few pounds it would cost to bring their wives with them!’

‘Darling! He’s sixty, looks like an empty banana skin and is only coming for the inside of a week –’

‘Some chaps can’t stand more than twenty-four hours, you know.’

The Chef de Cabinet did